


Turn the Lights Down

by LuckyLabrys



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blizzard wouldn't give me gay content so I made it, Character Development, D.Mon can't control her girlfriend, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Fluff, Hana Song isn't a gremlin, Slow Burn, Team as Family, backstory and current story and future story, my gaydies, where are my gay ladies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-02 19:09:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15802752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyLabrys/pseuds/LuckyLabrys
Summary: Hana Song is the kind of person who doesn't realise how dark it is until there aren't any lights left. For herself, that is truer than all other things. But she has time to learn, and a girl with a moniker that's all too similar to Hana's just might be what she needs.





	1. No Place For Children

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the new D.Va short, and about the 0.5 seconds of screentime that D.Mon got along with the overload of new D.Mon that I've been finding online. After all, if Blizzard isn't going to give me the gay content we need then I'm going to make it.

Eventually, the details got mixed up. It became something like, on Hana Song’s sixteenth birthday she entered a hoverbike competition with her best friend’s bike and messed up badly enough that she got a bright pink cast on her arm littered with names and funny jokes. 

But Hana wasn’t really sixteen when it happened because back then you had to be at least sixteen to enter in the hoverbike competitions in her neighbourhood, she’s fifteen but the nerve she had isn’t as easily countable. It took a little bit of convincing and funny looks, but soon enough she was given a form to fill out where she wrote her age as sixteen.

Her best friend’s sister had an old lime green hoverbike and the model is a decade old and fixed up with parts way past their expiration date. She didn’t have an allowance but she saved up the left over money she was given for lunch and birthdays to buy new parts for the bike and even paint to clean up the peeling green which fell off from the bike like moss. She wanted the hoverbike to be pink, her best friend wanted it to be blue, they settled on purple which didn’t really satisfy either of them but they kept it like   
that regardless. 

Her best friend, Dae-Hyun, showed his parents the bike every step of the way and every time his parents applauded and cheered like it’s the first time they’ve seen it. When they asked Hana if her parents are just as excited she steadily agreed with an easy smile. 

Her parents didn’t find out about the hoverbike until after the race. 

And Hana didn’t mess it up. The race is hard of course, all her practice had been around the streets of Dae-Hyun’s house, where there wasn’t nearly as many sharp turns and scenery omitted by earth and nature. The person next to her in the race she   
recognised because he was in the year above her in school and the impression he made was as sweet as garbage in the summer. The hoverbike had a few kinks to work out, but the one rule is to never push down on the booster for too long or the engine will overheat and spark out. 

Later she’d said that she forgot about it to Dae-Hyun’s and her parents, but at the time of the race she could feel the hum of the booster groaning against the deliberate pressure of the sole of her foot. The sparks flew in the air like hummingbirds at first and then she was thrown in the air with her hands curled adder’s grip tight around the handles. She almost completely missed the finish line and was thrown in the opposite direction but somehow she still technically made it over with herself barely attached to the   
hoverbike. 

And then the second she looked at the rest of her sprawled across the finish line body and her eyes saw her arm and leg she faints. 

A few months later she would tell Dae-Hyun that she had planned to say something really funny when she crossed the finish line. Her parents didn’t find it that funny when on a Friday afternoon they got a call from the emergency department at their nearby   
hospital about their daughter who definitely should not have been old enough to compete in a local hoverbike race.

Hana broke her collarbone, her arm, had to have stitches in her leg, and got a nasty scratch on her chin where a too-big bandaid sits on top. Dae-Hyun told her that she could have died pulling a stunt like that to which Hana responded ‘as if’.

It hurt, it really hurt, but the lecture she was given from her mother and father that was loud enough that she’s pretty sure the whole hospital head it was way worse in her opinion. 

At least they gave her food in the hospital. Not really good but she was so hungry that the off-textures and flavours didn’t really bother her, even while the doctor asked her questions and checked on her. 

The questions are easy and impersonal until he asked, “why did you go to the race?”

The look on her face is a little owlish before she took another sip from her soup. “The races just looked like I was missing out on something.”

He shook his head, it isn’t in a disappointed-like manor at all, but rather like she said something wrong. “It’s really nothing to worry about,” he told her, “it’s no place for children.”

He gave her a short wave before he left the room; while Hana gave him the most serious death glare she could muster with her babyish cheeks and braided hair and stuck her tongue out at him. 

“No place for children,” she grumbled under breath and began to splash her spoon in her quickly cooling soup.   
_

After what later became known as the ‘hoverbike incident’, Hana’s parents got stricter. Her parents and Dae-Hyun’s got into an argument that had her dad pushing for them to stop being so close to each other because of his ‘bad influence’. It worked and it   
didn’t. Hana’s furious, she locked herself in her room since there wasn’t much else to do with her arm and leg too scuffed up to enjoy her school holidays. 

But that doesn’t mean she didn’t stop talking to Dae-Hyun. No, there were a dozen social media apps and her phone that allowed them to keep on talking after all. Her dad was completely ignorant when it came to technology so it was not like he noticed, but   
she had a suspicion that her mother might have known about it. The two of them were still be unable to hang out around each other, but online is good enough. 

When just talking to each other becomes a bit mindless they played games online together, the repetitive kind most of the time. But eventually she borrowed a copy of her cousin’s game and Dae-Hyun got his own and it became just a bit more. A bit more   
interesting, a bit more fun. Hana’s alright at it, after all her hand could barely move the computer mouse without feeling the twinge of pain in the rest of her but—

But it worked easily enough. It was really fun. As in really fun. They played late into the night, at the time when her parents were asleep and she needed to be quiet so they couldn’t talk over her microphone with Dae-Hyun but they played in close enough   
synergy that they didn’t have to talk.

She spent her school holiday like that easily enough. When she got back to school she greeted Dae-Hyun with a leaping hug which was difficult enough to position with her healing arm but it was still nice. School wasn’t anything amazing or exciting, she was   
good enough in IT classes and Mathematics but she wasn’t quite sure where that left her for the future. What she knew is that now her parents couldn’t really scold her for hanging around Dae-Hyun since they were at school together. 

A year later on her actual sixteenth birthday she joked to Dae-Hyun that she was going to re-enter the hoverbike race again. The look he gave had her feeling shame suddenly and she teased him with a short punch to his shoulder, so he knew that she’s joking.   
Instead she got a job at a fast food place which was terrible enough that she warned Dae-Hyun not to buy any of the food when he came by to see what she got up to at work. It was boring, and she basically counted down the hours until the end of her shift,   
but her parents let her do whatever she wanted with the money that she makes, so she stockpiled it on videogames and a new computer. 

At school they had a careers session with one of the staff. You went to their office and talk with them for a few minutes about your plans after school. Dae-Hyun told her it’s pretty simple as he had his talk in earlier in the day, he talked about staying in Korea,   
doing mechanical engineering or something else that made entirely too much sense for Dae-Hyun to study. 

When Hana made her way into the room she entered with her own speech about some fake career and plan after school so she could get the talk over with quickly so she could head back to class. 

Hana stuck to the plan for about half a second. 

“And which university are you interested in?” The teacher asked her, not unkindly, but her eyes were looking down at the set of Hana’s grades that she had and her body language read uninterested. 

Hana hated being ignored, but she didn’t think about the justification for it when she responded, “and what if I don’t want to go to university?”

“You listed your main interest in computer science, didn’t you?” Her teacher asked her. 

“Yes but-“

“If you’re unsure about which universities offer the course you’re looking for I can always provide suggestions,” her teacher continued. 

Hana didn’t say anything but her teacher continued the rest of the talk without Hana saying anything. She wrote down some names on a piece of paper that she gave to Hana and internally Hana wondered if any of them would cross over with the places that   
Dae-Hyun might go to. 

At the end of the discussion Hana left, with her teacher smiling and feeling much more confident in her than Hana does herself. 

She tossed out the piece of the paper the second she passed the closest bin.   
__  
Hana went to university for a month before she dropped out. Her parents offered her tutoring but tutoring wasn’t the problem. The course wasn’t even that hard, she picked it up pretty quickly and someone told her that she had a knack for the field, which she   
could go far in if she worked hard enough. 

But Dae-Hyun and she joined a club of sorts. One of the many clubs at the university, gaming, it’s simple fun at first. They met up online some nights and play edwell after midnight. Then one day Dae-Hyun entered them in a local competition. And they won it. And then another one. So easy that it felt like she’s playing for nothing. Hana wasn’t really sure how it happened exactly (Dae-Hyun would tell her that it was a lot of his work and just entering the right competitions and talking to the right people) but they   
became an official E-Sports team. With a chance to enter a televised competition, no longer just kicking around her room at 1am with some random people on the other side of the planet. 

It’s about at this time when Hana told her parents that she’s quitting her course at the university. 

She didn’t tell them it’s because of the E-sports competition because that would give them way too much ammunition against her. They argued for a few days. Then when they could tell that she wasn’t budging they tried to offer her ideas for different courses,   
and when that didn’t work her mum offered her to work at her own small business. Hana said no to all of it. 

Two weeks later their new E-Sports team are invited to Ulsan, another city on the coast right above Busan. It only took a handful of bus tickets and money to stay at a hotel for a few nights to get them to all go.

When Hana watched the replays on her phone from the matches last year, the impossible tactics, the ridiculous moves. She told herself she couldn’t have that win. It would be too hard, they hadn’t practiced enough and they’re only a few university students,   
scratch Hana, which have just started playing. She joined in on the ideas of what they would do if they won. They came up with player tags that all match each other and eagerly followed along to the buzzing interest online. 

Hana told herself that they wouldn’t win. But it’s much harder to try to convince herself when she’s trying so hard.   
__

But then they won the competition exactly on the day of Korean New Year’s. It’s not as easy as she hoped for. Her eyes went blurry from how long she’s looked at the computer, her hands cramped up, some parts of it she’s pretty sure she’s just yelled gibberish into her microphone, and her ponytail was coming undone despite the fact that she hadn’t touched it all. 

But they still won. Despite the crippling fear of losing, despite co-ordinated strategies which go wrong the second they set them up. There’s still Dae-Hyun’s impeccable sharpshooting skills, there’s still her tactics which should have been be far too aggressive   
for her to have stayed alive for so long, and there was the player on the other team whose mouse fell off the table because his hand was so sweaty. 

They didn’t really bring the money to go out somewhere nice to celebrate, and they didn’t know the area really that well anyway so they piled what little they had left over to buy a handful of snacks and overpriced soft drinks to take back to the hotel. They   
counted it as their own New Year’s party as they stayed up late joking about the best and worst of their plays. 

“—At least at the end Hana decided to come back to the point and finally start covering my ass-“ Dae-Hyun started off before she can cut him off with a giggle. 

“Maybe because I was distracting them from your terrible name,” Hana teased him. She’s picking at the fabric of her jersey. The one’s that Yuna made before they left. Even then ‘made’ might have been a strong word, it was more like she’d bought some jerseys   
online with a blue and white colour scheme she liked and had printed some emblems from their team on top. 

He choked slightly on the drink he’s having, twirled it around in his grip before he teased back at her, “I was going along with the theme!”

“D.Stiny doesn’t even really sound like destiny,” she poked at his stomach with an emphasised frown, “there were so many other choices you could have gone with.”

“Hm,” he wondered, “because Diva was such a perfect name?”

Yuna, stood next to Hana, took a moment to rest her arm on her Hana’s shoulder. Despite the way Hana hated to feel small like this, she couldn’t help but feel it as endearing instead. “Doesn’t matter what the rest of you chose between I still got the best,” he   
grin was wide and filled with teeth, “D.Mon.” She growled out jokingly and lifted her fingers to her head where she curled them like mini devil horns. 

Yuna was been great. It’s easy for Hana to admit that, they’re the same age and sometimes Hana had to wonder what it would have been like if Yuna had gone to the same school as her and Dae-Hyun. The two of them had stayed close with each other   
throughout their whole lives, never really becoming too close a friend of any other people at their school, but Hana had always wondered what it would have been like to have a girl to hang out with. After all she couldn’t really talk about everything with Dae-  
Hyun. 

But still, while there wasn’t a tension between her and Yuna, Hana couldn’t help but sometimes feel on edge. Maybe it was because they were both so competitive, but then again Hana couldn’t help but recognise that the feeling was less like she wants to outdo   
Yuna but the impress her instead. Yuna has those cat-like eyes like her cousin had, she never seemed to take anything to seriously, or really care about anything that much either. She was a bit unreadable, and not really what Hana would have expected in the   
only other girl in their E-Sports team. 

“I don’t know about scary but at least Yuna was able to stay on point,” Dae-Hyun changed his tone to a bit of a sing-song voice when he added, “unlike someone else I know.”

“Would you quit it?” Hana groaned at him. They shared a slight grin with each other afterwards; after all they’re not really being serious with each other, it’s the same teasing they’d been doing since they were able to walk. It’s familiar, easy, and comfortable.

The conversation fell into easy jabs and laughter once again. In times like this it was easy to fall into a sort of rhythm. There’s no pressure or obligation only the cycle of listening and laughter, none of it feels forced. Busan became somewhere far away,   
somewhere untouchable. There are expectations back at home and she knew that once she went back she’s going to have to meet them. Her parents were at home, with barely any reasoning that she would give them for the trip to Ulsan. When she would get   
home tomorrow she’d have to come up with a plan, something just to keep them satisfied until she could come up with something that she wanted to do.

When she had talked to Dae-Hyun about it he had just asked her what she liked doing.

And she had always responded with a shrug of her shoulders. But there were ideas at the back of her head. She liked playing videogames. She liked to hang around with Dae-Hyun. 

She liked winning. 

Every half of an idea which would come into her head, something which she wanted to do she had to discard. 

She had to discard those hopeful dreams and imaginings somewhere else where she wouldn’t think of them again. Because if she dwelled on them for too long then they would become real. Something tangible and touchable for her to have. But it wasn’t   
alright, because she couldn’t have them. She’d never be able to have something like that. Those dreams were for other people, talented people with easy going characters and constitutions. 

So Hana Song couldn’t dwell on her dreams. No matter how much it burned. But she could have this night at least. She could have a New Year’s in her first year of leaving school with her friends and with Dae-Hyun doing something that she loved to do and   
winning. And she wants to keep it so badly, wrap it and form the mists of it so that she can take from this and keep it in a snow globe forever. 

The night dissolved away too quickly. Soon enough it began to weigh on her deeper and deeper, every time she laughed hard enough that no sound came out is another time when all she could think of the fact that this is not going to last forever. 

If anyone else noticed it they don’t push her when she flinched in her body at what they might do once they return to Busan. 

Eventually, they decided to head out toward the balcony as it neared midnight. The balcony was a small thing, at the right angle they could make out the view of the city streets as they delved away from the hotel they were staying in. The area is loud and full of   
excitement, even if Hana can’t always hear it. The wave of and excitement of New Years is thick and heavy and in the air, and it wasn’t even warm but the shared electricity and laughter in the city was enough to mimic the warm heat of summer.

The balcony was small enough that as they sat around they had to squish around each other. She couldn’t even see one of the boys who are at the opposite end of her. Dae-Hyun’s shoulders were nudging at hers and as he laughed she can feel the vibrations of   
the laughter through the air. But there’s an edge of tiredness to it and she knew that normally he’s asleep by now, or at least trying to convince Hana that if she stayed up any later she’s going to have permanent bags underneath her eyes. 

Yuna is sprawled across Hana. Her head was resting on her shoulder, but her body is curled up and turned into her like—well like she’s going to hug her. But even despite her position she’s still actively tried to talk to everyone else. Her voice wasn’t loud, but   
it’s hardly unnoticeable either. 

“I almost didn’t think this was going to be worth it,” Dae-Hyun admitted a little sheepishly, “I’ve really got no regrets and all coming here but my teacher was hyping up this assignment that she just gave us. And well, I don’t know what my point was but I’m   
glad I’m here.”

Hana cringed a little bit internally, if she hadn’t come here, or left her computer science course she would have been doing work this weekend too. But now all she had to do this weekend was to make sure she fed the cat—and oh. Oh, Hana really hoped that   
her parents fed the cat.

She’s snapped out of her own thoughts by Yuna who added “I was meant to do a stream tonight.”

“Wait like a videogame streaming thing? You do those?” Hana asked her a bit too quickly and straightened up a little bit that it dislodged the comfortable position where Yuna had been laid just a second ago. 

“Ha, a little bit yeah, I do them on Wednesdays as well, but I mean—“ Yuna paused a little bit to try to steady herself before she continued, “I mean not that many people really watch them so they’re kind of dumb. And it’s not like a super serious thing but it’s   
kind of fun, I don’t know I guess.”

“What’s your tag name?” One of the other boys asked Yuna. 

It took a moment for Hana to realise that she was staring a little bit too owlishly at Yuna. It seemed like Yuna was casual all of the time or that there wasn’t much that fazed her at all but right now she seemed almost embarrassed based on the way that her face   
had began to become flush. 

Yuna sort of paused for a moment and moved her head in a so-so motion like she’s debating whether or not to say. A moment later it seems she’s come up with a decision and continues, “last week I ended up changing it to D.Mon to sort of fit with our E-  
Sports team thing. But in the competition no one really knew who we were so since this is kind of our first time. But I doubt anyone really noticed that I wasn’t streaming tonight, it’s not like a lot of people watch my stuff really.”

“I’ll start watching it the second I get back,” Dae-Hyun told Yuna and the rest of the boys agreed quickly and a few asked some more questions that are caught up in them speaking over one another. 

Yuna glanced up at Hana for a second and Hana had no idea why but the next thing she said is, “I’m not sure I want to watch streams of you get carried when I just had to see it all day.”

And oh no, Hana had no idea why she just said that. She can’t even remember if it came out teasingly, she meant it teasingly but what if it didn’t—

But Yuna’s easy going laugh seemed to wash away the rest of her doubts and the girl poked out her tongue teasingly straight back at Hana, and it’s enough for Hana to catch sight of the girl’s tongue piercing which she rarely noticed. 

And Hana’s easily relieved, she didn’t want Yuna to think she meant that seriously. Because the second that she’d brought it up Hana had wanted to see the streams herself. She watched streams sometimes of course, but there was no one that she really knew   
who did them. She wanted to ask Yuna if she did commentary too or maybe what games did she play or if they were the same as the ones which the team played. How long had she been doing it for?

Her question is interrupted by a cell phone ring from back in the hotel which one of the boys climbed out from his spot to go answer once he recognised the ring tone. And then her own ringtone sounds out from back in the hotel too, some song, something   
that she’s grown to hate is singing out. And by the time she’s picked up the phone call she can already hear two more phones being dialled. 

She checked to see the caller ID as her mother’s and answered it, but before she can even say hello her mother was yelling straight into her ear. 

“Hana you’re still in Ulsan aren’t you?,” her mother’s voice snapped out hot and insistent. 

She sighed and leaned against the couch, “yes, but I’m going to back home tomorrow—“

“Don’t, don’t, you can’t come back to Busan Hana,” her mother replied instantly and she can hear the wetness and emotion in her voice. 

This really can’t be in response to her going away for the weekend can it? Her parents had been disappointed with her not staying in her university course, but even then--

“Don’t?” Hana repeated, “I just went away for the weekend and uni-“

“Can you go to your grandparents in Yongin? I’m going to text you bank account details so you can use the money to get there Hana, dad and I are going to meet you there,” and it’s only then that Hana realised that her mother is sobbing into the phone. 

She turned around, the other boys were talking back into their phones rushed and worriedly. And only Yuna—still sitting in the balcony. No one had called her.

There’s still a heat in the New Year’s air, but Hana could hear yelling in the streets and people in the hallway outside their hotel room ran about and talking over the top of each other. 

“Mum what’s—“ 

“Dad and I will call you once we’re out of Busan, everyone’s evacuating west,” there’s a pause from her mother on the end of the line that might be her dad’s above the background sounds, “Hana it’s like Siberia.”

“What do you mean?” She managed to choke out but she could already tell. Because lately whenever someone talked about Siberia they talked about—

“There’s omnics everywhere, but you’ve got to head out of Ulsan and off the coast now Hana—“ what’s left of what her mum was going to say as she finished the call with is cut off by one of the boys sobbing across from her. And when Hana looked back at her   
phone the call has already ended. 

Yuna’s asking what’s wrong and—

Why isn’t anyone calling Yuna? Yuna once said her family lived closer to the coast line but—

Hana just stared back at the empty space across her where the cheap hotel art is hung simply against the wall. And only a moment later, the sound of sirens began to ring across the city. So individually and so vastly that it sounded like a curtain to suffocate her.


	2. As It Is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you so much for the amount of support I got for the first chapter it was completely amazing and incredible and I love y'all way too much to describe in words. The upload schedule will probably change around a lot, but I can see myself at least doing one chapter a week, maybe two, around the same word count. I thought I should mention that at this point Hana is about 18, when in the current Overwatch canon she's at about 19, so there's still quite a bit that changes her between this time! But this isn't just a backstory! That's just a small part of it, I'll also be adding up to and past what we're up to in the current Overwatch canon.

Yongin might have been beautiful if it weren’t for what remained in the air. Growing up as a child Hana had often visited Yongin to see her grandparents, but she much more enjoyed parading around the amusement and water parks. In less than a few weeks since she arrived in Yongin those theme parks had been shut down. Now, bright blue posters advertised across the streets notified those that many of those places that had housed her childhood memories had been ‘temporarily’ shut down. Well, who wanted to go to an amusement park when the next day it could turn into a battlefield?

It’d been just over a month since Busan had been...captured. Hana felt hesitant to use the word, and it felt like newspapers and reporters were just as hesitant to use it as well. Not for what the defeat in Busan might mean, but for the connotations. Daring reporters and appealing government reports shared photos of what they could of Busan. Abandoned of life, save for the Omnics, wreckages and clear signs of destruction, but ultimately it remained intact. It felt more like the Omnics had invaded rather than causing ceaseless destruction. Reporters and scientists who used the words ‘intriguing’ to describe the behaviour of the Omnics made Hana sick to her gut.

The Omnics had pushed slightly outwards from Busan, even reports of them being seen heading towards the west and north. But the military had appeared to be acting as a sort of shield from keeping from pushing out from Busan. Almost like they were quarantining the omnics.

Her grandparent’s house was smaller than she remembered. Hana hadn’t been there for a long time but even then she never recognised the old age to the house, there was a balcony, where sometimes they spent long afternoons and nights having dinner, where it faced outwards to the north. If Hana wanted to glance down in the direction of Busan she had to tiptoe to the side of the house and climb on top of the steel bins. There she’d hang her arms over the side of the tall fence and latch her eyes onto the horizon where she’d watch until the distant horizon was swallowed up by the city. Never any sky or imagination that could squeak through, and certainly not Busan.

Her parents took a week to make it to Yongin. In between, there was no contact. But after midnight one Thursday they knocked on the door. They carried no bags with them and Hana never asked if they had tried to bring anything only to have sold it along the way or if they simply had to flee without a memory to tie them to Busan. They’d sold their shoes to make it out of Busan and a handful of other clothing items to make it to Yongin. When her father told them the story he growled at the memory of people bargaining for the price of shoes just so they could live to run far enough.

That night Hana climbed into their bed for the first time since she was six and hiding from nightmares. Her parents were already asleep; one half of her understood the need to sleep. The other half of her thought of the three days she stayed awake with barely shutting her eyes after Ulsan and winced when her parents didn’t react when she climbed in their bed. In the morning she awakened before them, faintly embarrassed. The only sign she received that her parents had noticed was when she went to bed that night, her mother followed her and gave her a kiss on her forehead before she went to sleep.

Her parents and grandparents spoke about leaving Yongin. Then they spoke about leaving Korea.

Hana couldn’t leave Korea.

Dae-Hyun’s mother and family had left instantly; they had caught a boat out and headed to China. Hana had dragged Dae-Hyun to Yongin with her, her grandparents seemed to hardly care when Hana asked if he could stay, and he had scarcely spoken in the household except in thanks for food or to call that he was going to sleep on the couch.

Hana was aware of the drawn-out phone calls he’d had with his parents behind the shed where he thought that he wouldn’t be overheard. In the beginning, she could see him considering it. Siberia wasn’t spared when the omnics invaded; to get overconfident and believe that anyone is safe within Korea now would be a mistake.

And then just over a week ago came the announcement that mandatory conscription had been reinstated once more in the country.

Conscription had been outlawed a few decades ago. It used to require men between eighteen and thirty-five to participate in two years of military service. Her father had been young enough that he had been conscripted himself. When the initial talk of conscription had been announced to the public the desire to leave Korea was made evident. _Cannon fodder_ they called those that had begun to join the military. Her grandmother had less quaint words for them.

Once people began to leave; Dae-Hyun updated her of the people from school who had already joined and those who had left. Some had simply not come forward yet. But conscription was mandatory, avoiding it meant legal punishment, and people had been talking about harsher laws to enforce conscription. If Dae-Hyun left now there’s no telling what the long-term consequences would be.

“I’ll have to respond soon enough Hana,” he told her in a voice that was too soft too many times.

“I’m not ashamed of joining the military Hana,” he told her again. They were hanging up the laundry in the backyard across the clothesline. Dae-Hyun had a basket under his arm and Hana’d stuck pegs on her fingers like they’re nails when he had said it.

She had to force herself not to grind her teeth before she responded, “I don’t think it’s shameful either.”

“Good,” he said and tried to not show the surprise in his voice. It’s the first time he’s actually been able to begin a conversation with Hana about the conscription issue.

“The reason you’re not going is because you’d be bad at it,” she followed up and had to keep her voice as steady as she can.

Dae-Hyun groaned at her, but Hana continued easily, “I’ve been researching the military and Busan since we’ve gotten here. Busan is too extreme of a situation if they’re using fresh recruits. And you wouldn’t be able to keep up in the drills anyway, you did fail Phys Ed—“

“I failed sport in year _six_ because I had a broken leg it doesn’t count—“ He groaned without any bite to it.

“Ok so we know you already have a track record of breaking bones,” she tried to smile a bit but it came out skewed, “and you’re a real wuss when it comes to blood. And anyway China probably has all kinds of crazy courses for mechanical engineering and the most you’d see here is some nails or-or Omnics—“

“Hana,” he said firmly but not rudely. He left the air to still and for a wave of silence to float around them. “Anything could happen, yes, but I don’t even know if I’d ever even see Busan. Most people are predicting that the new recruits will just do drills and training and soon enough the army will retake Busan and either they’ll let us go easy with conscription or we’ll just spend the rest of the two years peaking out to the coast with binoculars. I’m not that worried.”

And Hana bit her teeth against the air like she was gnashing it, “you should be worried! You should be terrified and should just get out of here! You saw how quickly they took over Busan—“

“So I’m meant to give up and leave my home?” Dae-Hyun asked her – no, it wasn’t asking. It was pleading. “If everyone was a coward like I am then there would be no one left to protect Korea, and if everyone in the world kept on running away then there would be nowhere to go—“

“It’s not your burden!”

“I never said it was a burden, and it certainly isn’t your burden!” He protested finally letting the laundry basket drop to the ground so he could motion with his hands.

_Burden_. It was an ugly word. Hana had never thought of it applying to her or at least never in the things that she cared about or loved. A burden in a game of sport or writing an English essay maybe. But who was she to be the burden of this time? A burden on Korea, if she left. Perhaps, Korea was not the burden she was meant for.

And then Hana couldn’t stop thinking if it could be.

“What if it was?” She asked him slowly.

Dae-Hyun looked wearily at her, he knew he was being baited but he couldn’t help but ask, “what if what was your burden?”

“I’m eighteen it’s not like I can’t enlist,” she tried to say gingerly.

He just stared at her. Over the past few weeks, she’d never considered joining the military. She thought that her closest participation in the war would end up having the stubbornness to say that she stayed afterward.

He wiped his hand down his face for a long moment, “only boys are conscripted into the military.”

“That’s cool and all,” Hana made an action with her mouth like she was chewing gum, “but I can still enlist you know.”

“But you can’t just replace my conscription placement!” He said more baffled than anything at the prospect of it.

“I don’t need to,” she said casually. And just the idea of it makes her anxious but she can watch out for Dae-Hyun there. She’ll get to see home again. She knows there will be things that will make her skin crawl and her goose bumps bite. But right now she can just enjoy the look on her friend’s face. “All I need to do is go there and make sure you stay out of trouble for now.”

“You’re parents will never let you go—“

Hana stopped him from continuing to talk, knowing it was the only way to stop her from flinching, “mum and dad don’t need to ‘allow’ me to do anything. I could go right now—“

“Hana stop joking about this,” he said shortly.

“What do you mean—“and then Hana finally picked the look on his face. Disappointment, and shame, and a hundred ugly emotions all wrapped up. He thought that she was joking around. That she had not meant it.

Why should Hana have meant it? Her family could keep on heading north, if she badgered Dae-Hyun long enough maybe she could get him to go to China and she could meet up there later. China, business, opportunities, and inspiration. Maybe just enjoy the late night sun if she wanted that.

But then there was Korea. And the little voice inside her head that told her that even if Dae-Hyun left for China, Hana would still do something. And suddenly something seemed incredibly infinite. But always one option, one _want_ that she had begun to brew eagerly in her mind.

Hana squished her lips together, “I’ve been thinking about this for a while now,” a while could count as a few minutes, right?

Dae-Hyun just stared at her, a kind of look that made Hana want to roll in on herself and take a moment to think, but times for moments like those were already long gone.

So instead Dae-Hyun said the only thing that could make her reconsider, “you’re going to break your parent’s hearts.”

_Moments for that are long gone._ To enjoy her mother’s embrace, to listen to their arguments, and eventually to choose to leave regardless.

“Hana,” he murmured, “you know how horrible it was for you when they were coming here. It’d be the exact same for them—“

“That’s only if I don’t come back,” she said quickly, “and it’s just like you said, we’ll probably just do drills and they’ll take back Busan by the time they give us our uniforms.”

“You know I didn’t...” The pause dragged on for too long and Hana could feel the dead weight of it that hung in the air. “You—you’re saying goodbye to your parents before we go and your grandparents too.”

She rubbed her fingers together, trying to keep some of the spring heat still in her hands, “I know you’re only saying that because you think that they’ll convince me not to go.”

“Yes,” he admitted without shame, “but you’re still going to say something or else I definitely will Hana.”

And he would. Hana didn’t doubt that at all. But as desperate as she knew he was to convince her not to go, she knew he must have also been desperate not to be alone as well. Dae-Hyun would never ask her to enroll with him. But he must have wondered what it would have been like not to do it alone, wouldn’t he? No one imagines war alone.

And then there’s the other word that reporters don’t want to use. War.

Crisis and disaster were easier. War implied intelligence and strategy. War implied a section in a textbook, not the takeover from the Omnics that now paraded the streets.

“Hana,” he warned her softly.

“Really,” she promised, “seriously, I’ll tell them about it tonight, and then tomorrow we’ll go enlist, easy as.”

“Mhm,” he murmured neutrally.

Hana plucked the remaining clothing pegs off of her fingers and soothed her hands over them with ease. But she could still feel the weight that remained on her phone in her back pocket.

                                                                                                _

That afternoon before dinner she left home with the full intention of returning an hour later.

She asked her parents if she could go down to the park just around the corner, mindful of their curiosity and Dae-Hyun’s hesitation and took only her phone with her.

This – what she was about to do, had been overdue for far too long.

She had barely kept notice of her contacts on her phone before. Often adding people as an afterthought or as a reminder for an event or for something of the like. She had her parent’s numbers memorized as well as Dae-Hyun’s, but there was a handful of numbers that she had failed to do right by.

The first name on her contacts list which she read as ‘brown dog hair’ was easily recognisable enough, even though it had pained her to admit it. Byong-ho, one of the six members of their E-sports team. The nickname had been chosen for his hair, not especially long, but long enough that it was tied up into a low bun that touched his neck and had the tendency to fall apart easily.

This wasn’t just a practice before she told her parents; she hadn’t really spoken to her new friends since Busan’s invasion, now she might not have a chance to speak to them for...

She clicked the dial feature on her phone and waited patiently. The immediate voice on the other end struck her as wrong, and the pre-automated voice sequence began to inform her that the phone number was no longer in use.

Her shoulders scrunched up quickly, no longer in use could mean too many things. All too likely that he had just canceled the number and changed it to fit a new country. Byong-ho could have already been halfway across the world right now.

The next number came and went with an all too similar pre-automated message to fill the gap in between. Had he already left already too? There was the chance that he could have just canceled his phone plan...Maybe for his family to conserve money at this time...Or he could have left the country as well.

Two more numbers and the instant reply from the next one led her to cut off the rest of the pre-automated message.

It was then when Hana could begin to notice the loneliness welling up inside her. One last number and Hana didn’t hesitate before she dialed it. She released a breath once she heard the reassuring sound of the repeating dial on the other end. No automated message left for her yet, but still, there was always the chance that no one would pick up or Hana could have the wrong number and she hadn’t even planned anything to say and maybe this was the wrong idea—

Her thoughts were cut off from the sound of silence on the end. No, the silence wasn’t right, there was no dialing sound but the call had not ended either, she could hear slow breaths on the other end of the phone.

But she could still be wrong, “Yuna?”

The nothingness was so still that Hana couldn’t stand it for a second longer, she was about to raise her voice once more when she heard in a flat and dry tone, “who is this?”

“Um,” and Hana was suddenly aware of the lack of things she had to say, “this is Hana? We were on the same gaming team at university—“

“I know who are you are,” her voice said with her tone unchanged.

“Thanks,” Hana said before realizing how ridiculously stupid that sounded. _Thanks_ , she mouthed to herself. Well, know she’d set the bar as low as it could possibly get, not like she could ruin it any further from now. “I called everyone else, and I couldn’t get a hold of them, except for Dae-Hyun, he’s with me, but I wanted to try to see who was still in Korea.”

Once more there was a pause before Yuna’s response, “I’m in Seoul, at my uncle’s right now.”

“Seoul,” Hana repeated for a moment trying to figure out what to say, “It’s good that you got to meet up with your uncle there.”

“Not really,” Yuna replied and Hana heard the long sigh on the other side of the phone, “I haven’t seen him, I just know he has a place here and where he keeps the spare key.”

That made Hana do a double-take for a moment, “you’re alone?”

“My uncle’s in Busan, he’s a Captain,” before Yuna added as if as an afterthought, “but I guess they dragged down anyone who could shoot and follow orders.”

Hana was silent on the other end. Yuna was alone; her parents had taken a week to make it to Yongin using what they had from the escape. It had been a month and Yuna was still alone. They could be still making their way towards Seoul, for a chance when Yuna could open the door for them. But Hana only had the feeling that what was behind any door she opened would only mirror the same emptiness within her uncle’s house she now stayed in.

“So,” Yuna said dully, “when are you leaving Korea?”

She hesitated for a long moment, she couldn’t continue, not when...

“I think my family is going to stay,” Hana said slowly, “there’s no call for a civilian evacuation yet...”

Yuna huffed, “but Dae-Hyun’s getting out of there, right? Might as well leave if the alternative is cannon fodder.”

Hana needed to lie but instead, she said, “I think he’s going to enlist.”

_And I’m going to enlist with him_ , were the words she left unsaid.

“Busan’s about to become just like Siberia, Hana,” Yuna’s said her tone switches from cold to frostbite in an instant, “there’s no way you’re letting him go there by himself.”

“I’m not!” She tried to bite down on her tongue from continuing but couldn’t help as the words slipped out – “I’m not letting him go alone, Korea doesn’t have to be like Siberia—“

“Busan’s about to be turned to rubble,” Yuna snapped, “people are still there you know? They’re hiding in bunkers and trying to convince themselves that the military are going to save them. But Omnics don’t care Hana, they don’t need bargaining chips.”

“Your—“

And by the fragility in her voice, Hana knew what Yuna was going to say. “My ma and pa are dead, the first day my uncle told me over the phone, then he went on and described that military are going to have Busan under control before anyone else could get caught up in it. But it’s been a month and the military has got nothing to show for it.”

“Korea doesn’t have to be like Siberia,” Hana begged her to understand, “that’s why I can’t run away.”

“Do yourself a favour and don’t enlist,” she murmured, her voice static and cold, “stop adding numbers to the mourners, we’re busy enough as it already is.”

Before Hana had another chance to speak, the phone line went dead. She only pulled herself up to her legs to tuck herself into her body on the park bench. Warming her hands to the plain textures of her bright phone.

Hana didn’t count how long enough it took for Dae-Hyun to find her. But by the time he had her tears had already dried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did some research on the South Korean military for this, it's pretty interesting but still, I hope I'm not too out of my depth when talking about what kind of conscription they have. I sort of felt like writing another scene but I felt like it wouldn't really fit with what I was trying to convey this chapter. And Leave some support for me in the comments! It always brightens my day to see it! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Look forward to more! And leave a kudos and a comment if you're feeling it! It always makes my day!


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